


Aftermath (Goddess let me be strong, let me be brave)

by Quecksilver_Eyes



Series: On Magic in Auradon [8]
Category: Descendants (Disney Movies)
Genre: F/M, M/M, and it feels like being frozen and tangled and choked, and she misses her boys like someone is burning her skin off her, uma deals with the aftermath of failing and facing mal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-02
Updated: 2019-06-02
Packaged: 2020-04-06 18:32:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19068262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quecksilver_Eyes/pseuds/Quecksilver_Eyes
Summary: She should have drowned them all.She should have grabbed that dragon from the skies and dragged it down to the ocean floor, chain it down and let it choke on the salt water and all she had been denied all her life. She should have sunk the ship; that fairy who had bleached all the magic out of herself, who tied her wings to her back and left her wand out of her sight, that child king and all he didn’t know, all he didn’t think of, all the royalty and all those heroes who’d let them rot in their own filth, their own despair.





	Aftermath (Goddess let me be strong, let me be brave)

Here is how Uma misses her boys:

Like fire burning in her guts, and in her veins, hot against her skin even as she dives as deep as her body and her magic and her tentacles can take – where the water is like ice and there is nothing but darkness around her, the only light is her necklace that glows and pulses in tune with her heart. The pressure around her lies snug on her waist, her arms, her braided hair, like her mother’s tentacles holding her close, and still, it burns and curls inside of her. She thinks of Gil, with his hands in her hair, Harry with his smile on her skin. It makes the fire under her skin burn brighter, makes a knot grow in her throat where her voice used to be, and she wraps her fingers around her necklace and flutters her gills around icy cold water.

_Goddess_ , she thinks. _Goddess, let me be strong._

Mal’s eyes had glowed like never before, bright and stomach turning and brimming with all the magic she didn’t have on the isle, as green as the roots of her pale violet hair, and Uma still can’t shake the way the hairs on her arms had stood up when Mal had looked at her like that. Glowing and magic and _fairy_ and so furious that Uma had seen her mother in her – and all that the isle had raised them to spit at each other’s feet. Mal had struggled for air, her chest heaving and all Uma could do was watch as Mal who let them all rot, Mal who found a better life and had tried to abandon it, Mal who was playing pretend in dresses and crowns and pastel coloured happy endings, had ripped her one chance to see her boys again from her in a cloud of green smoke.

She should have drowned them all.

She should have grabbed that dragon from the skies and dragged it down to the ocean floor, chain it down and let it choke on the salt water and all she had been denied all her life. She should have sunk the ship; that fairy who had bleached all the magic out of herself, who tied her wings to her back and left her wand out of her sight, that child king and all he didn’t know, all he didn’t think of, all the royalty and all those heroes who’d let them rot in their own filth, their own despair.

She didn’t.

Instead, she froze and stared at Mal and thought of shrimp and laughter and her boys. Her boys, with their hands and their smiles, her boys and her crew and all the people she loved, all the people Mal would happily burn to a crisp if she was only given a chance. She thought of her mother too, and how a ship had stabbed her, splintering and groaning, led only by a human’s hand, thought of how her mother had been woken up with her gills stuck together and her chest bleeding, how she’d fit herself into a tank barely big enough to contain her. And Mal, with all her words and all the bleach in her hair, had looked at her as if she knew. Mal who had made people run with a snap and a laugh, who had never cowered to anyone but her mother, Mal and all the lies she’d wrapped herself in.

And yet, Uma couldn’t move, couldn’t wrap her tentacles around Mal’s torso and drag her those few feet into the water, couldn’t send all her magic towards the king and hurt him, couldn’t make the ship topple over and sink. Her magic was boiling under her skin with a longing and all her rage, and yet she could use none of it.

So now she dives as deep as she can, listens to her bones groan and her heart ache, watches as the world around her is dipped in black. Her mother’s lair is a filthy thing, overgrown and uncared for, the skeleton cracking and straining to stay upright, all the shells and all the glasses in shards on the ocean floor. All that still stands is her mother’s kettle, so Uma climbs inside and curls her tentacles into herself until the water around her is still and unmoving and all she can hear is her heart high in her throat.

_Goddess_ , she thinks and thinks of Gil and the soft tilt of his voice, thinks of Harry and his hook cool on her skin, _Goddess, let me be brave._


End file.
